Casting about for new music to listen to I came across the Phenomenauts, and the description sounded all right (something like "pop-punk with some synths"), and sure enough, they're pretty fun (and unlike so many pop-punk bands, they don't sound like whiny teenagers).  The track list for their album, For All Mankind, lists "Make a Circuit With Me" as track 4.  Could it be the Polecats' song from way back in the 80s?, I wondered.  It is!  The Phenomenauts have made a small change to the classic chorus of "I need a diode, cathode, electrode, overload, generator, oscillator -- Make a circuit with me": they've replaced "electrode" with "nematode" (roundworm?!) for some reason.  And otherwise they've cranked up the speed, volume, and guitar distortion and made the song fit right into the musical landscape of today.  Here is the Polecats' original rockabilly-robotica video, followed by a stream of the Phenomenauts' version:

The Polecats-Make a circuit with me

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Mrs. V. and I are big fans of Zero 7; that is, of the Zero 7 songs that they did not invite Sia Furler to vandalize with her breathy, pouty, "ghetto twee*" vocal stylings.  Verily, she is the Jar Jar Binks of downtempo.  We're okay with the other guest singers, but it's the Fender Rhodes-laden instrumentals that really melt us into the upholstery in a mellow swoon.  If I had bothered to read the liner notes sooner I would have known that the Rhodes-tinkler, Neil Cowley, is not part of the Zero 7 duo, but is a guest as well.  So now I'm catching up with Cowley's other work: his own synth duo Fragile State, and the creamy Rhodes goodness of Soundcastles, his 2006 album as Pretz.

02-pretz-chapel_stile

pretz

All with zero percent Sia!  Speaking of electronic chillout duos, it was Air's Premiers Symptômes CD that put the Rhodes on my downtempo map way back in the late 90s; no other album evokes 70s-era romantic softcore porn nearly as well.  Patrick Woodcock's tuba is the secret ingredient that helps make it so deliciously dreamy.

03 - Les Professionnels

Air

Finally, from this side of the Atlantic there is (was?) Spool, the duo of John Ridenour and "Jhno" (John Eichenseer), who are at their best when Jhno busts out the Rhodes:

02-Algo

Spool

I had a Rhodes once, and it did not sound like that!  Apparently you need the right kind of amp or effects pedal or whatever, but I could never be bothered to get into hardware.  Now you can just download a VST plugin to get a decent Rhodes sound.  Come to think of it, I should do that.

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I must interrupt the skronk thread to announce this breaking news, or broken news, as the case may be; it may be old news but it's news to me.  Blog favorite Nomo has a new album, Ghost Rock, coming out on June 17th, but they're streaming three songs in advance on RCRD LBL:

Ghost Rock was produced by Warn Defever, a.k.a. His Name Is Alive, and it seems that Nomo leader Elliot Bergman is as much a studio geek as he is, so this should be a great album.  If the rest of the tracks are as good as these three, then it will be.

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The posts I want to do keep getting bigger, and thus they are taking longer to prepare.  Coming soon will be a post on UK Skronk, but in the meantime, Mojack brings us some brand new skronk from the US.  Mojack is the current band of Greg Ginn (the guitarist from Black Flag and Gone and the founder of SST records) with Tony Atherton on sax and Mike Lopez on drums.  Skronk is a "term attributed to Robert Christgau by Lester Bangs in 1981′s ‘A Reasonable Guide to Horrible Noise’ referring to music of the late ’70s art-punk movement." (from skronker.com)  Meaning James Chance and the Contortions, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, D.N.A., etc.  I've been listening to lots of British skronk band The Box lately; they broke up over twenty years ago, but Mojack sounds like The Box all over again.  Minus the vocals, though; Peter Hope's singing was completely over-the-top and damn near nonsensical, but it humanized the music.  I like Mojack, but I think they could use a vocal focal point.  That's just my opinion, though, you can judge for yourself via this handy-dandy Mojack player:

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What could be as unlikely as a disco/southern rock cover of a Yardbirds song?  How about an 80s electro cover of a Bad Company song?  I've been wanting to hear Jenny Burton's cover of "Rock Steady" again since the 80s, but I've never managed to connect with a copy of the record, or even an mp3, until now.  In an era when even CD reissues seem anachronistic, Wounded Bird Records of Guilderland, New York, keeps plugging away at it.  Thanks to them, Jenny Burton's 1984 album In Black and White is finally available on CD, and I got me one.  What I didn't know back then, because all I had by her were singles with no liner notes, is that the instrumental tracks on the album were created entirely by John Robie.  Robie arguably did more than anyone else to define the electro-boogie sound of the 80s through his work as a synth programmer for several influential Tommy Boy groups: Soulsonic Force, the Jonzun Crew, and Planet Patrol.  (He did a killer remix of Cabaret Voltaire's "Yashar," too, which may have had some influence on their shift to dance music.)  In Black and White continues his trademark sound, dubbed together from an arsenal of electronic instruments listed in the credits: Roland TR 808, Multi-Moog, Prophet 5, Sequential Circuits Poly-Sequencer, EMU Systems Emulator Digital Synthesizer, Roland Juno 60, and Yamaha CP 70, plus Yamaha acoustic piano, Fender Stratocaster, and Gibson SG Custom.  Put that all together with a powerful female singer and you get the most unique Bad Company cover ever on a major label:

01-Rock Steady

Jenny Burton

(Edited for length.)  "Rock Steady" was overshadowed by the big hit from the album, "Remember What You Like."  That's fitting since it's a better song for her, but "Rock Steady" has terrific novelty value.  Jenny Burton is still singing, but she's left the electro style behind for a more mature R&B/gospel focus.  Sigh.

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Having had access to the college radio station record library during the 80s, not to mention the constant stream of new releases that came in, and then spending all my disposable income (plus future income, once I got a credit card) on imported British records, I felt sure I must have uncovered everything I could possibly like.  But the sharity blogs keep dishing up records that I somehow overlooked, and occasionally one will make me go, "Damn, I wish I'd heard that back then, I would have been totally into it!"  Given my Sheffield band fandom, I was surprised to find I'd missed one: Leitmotiv.  Their "Big Money" single is not quite as hard as my favorite Sheffield bands, but has a big, muscular beat that I would have loved anyway:

01 - big money

Leitmotiv

So I missed it the first time around, but at least I can dig it now!  Another band I missed out on was FourWayCross, a California band who, coincidentally, also were on the same label as Drowning Pool (recently seen here).  "Apologize" from their Product One album should appeal to the Killing Joke fan in anyone:

03 - Apologize

Fourwaycross

Actually, that sounds more like Play Dead than Killing Joke.  That reminds me, I've got to get some Play Dead on here, I just don't know what to pick.  Anyway, thanks to the sharity blogosphere for helping me fill in the gaps!

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It always galls me when a new band takes the same name as an old band; for one thing it's an annoyance to have net searches mucked up with the pretender's name, and at worst they end up overwriting the history of the original band.  How infuriating that the name of transsexual rock great Wayne/Jayne County's early band, the Backstreet Boys, has been forever tainted by the boy band's appropriation.  Apropos of my last post, The Prodigy's band name is now diluted by a rapper who goes by Prodigy.  And the metal band Drowning Pool has taken the name of a fascinating band from the 80s.  I recently dug up my copy of the original Drowning Pool's Satori double album, released on the Nate Starkman and Son label in 1987 in a gorgeous hand-printed heavy cardboard gatefold sleeve.  It's a mix of studio and live recordings spanning several postpunk musical styles--drum machine workouts, renaissance madrigals, funereal dirges--while listening to it I was reminded of Dead Can Dance, but one track sounded uncannily like the Abecedarians.  I swear I came up with those references before opening their MySpace page and reading their "Sounds like" list, which begins with Dead Can Dance and Abecedarians!  There is a liturgical feel to some of the songs, especially the vocals, similar to music by the more recent Arcanta.  Here is "Festival of Healing"--

B3 Festival of Healing

Drowning Pool

The members of Drowning Pool have resurrected their own label, Scarface Charley, to reissue their records on CD.  Two have so far been produced (Green and Aphonia), with the "magnum opus" Satori still to come.  This rediscovery has also opened up new avenues of musical exploration for me, returning me to the punk tribalisms of Drowning Pool labelmates Savage Republic, and introducing me to the similarly-inclined Red Temple Spirits.  And all because there's a metal band called Drowning Pool!

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or just plain "breaks," as I was last time: The Prodigy is generally considered to be the definitive breaks act, and they have been the most visible, thanks to several videos centered around frontman Keith Flint's evil-clown persona.  But Prodigy mastermind Liam Howlett's music underneath Flint's antics is top-notch, with driving beats and klaxon-like synths that unilaterally impel dancefloor action.

The Prodigy - Firestarter

My favorite breaks tracks, though, are four songs by Cirrus from their 2002 album Counterfeit.  They hit four home runs that surpass even The Prodigy for danceability, though their lyrics can be pretty awful, e.g. "Breakbeat suckers, we're the real motherf*ckers"--

03 Breakbeat Suckers

Cirrus

But those beats!  And those drop-outs, and phase-shifts, and synth hooks, and everything!  Aww, yeah... file under Guilty Pleasures.  Nothing Cirrus has done before or since has matched the core of Counterfeit, and they might not ever match it again, but "Breakbeat Suckers," "Dragon Lounge," "Ghetto Blaster," and "Unbreakable" should hold up for generations (as well as any electronic dance music can be expected to).

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The State Theatre of Ithaca has just announced its 2008-09 season schedule, and the big news is, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are coming to Ithaca!  Yahoo!!!  Not until November, though; sigh.  But I'm going!

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings "100 Days, 100 Nights"

04_The Dap Dip

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings

And I bought tickets today to see Nine Inch Nails in Philly!  On Mrs. Veneer's birthday...oops.

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Shawn Lee has just put out yet another new Ping Pong Orchestra album!  It's called Miles of Styles and, as the title suggests, it's got the most varied genres of any record in the series (and it's also double the length).  The tunes are mostly instrumental, and Lee uses the song titles to telegraph their content: "Punjabi Lullaby," "Brazilian Bubble," "Lagos Calling," "Heist in Helsinki," etc.  Here is "Italy 73"--

09 Italy 73

Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestr

Is that an homage to 1970s Italian thriller soundtrack masters Goblin?  I think it's a safe bet; here's some Goblin:

15-La_via_della_droga_-_31

Goblin

So far we've had two of the four kinds of soundtrack music:

1. Fake library music.  Real library music is marketed to film producers to use in film soundtracks.  Usually the records or discs are several times more expensive than "consumer" recordings, because the price includes royalties for unlimited use in films.  This is where most of the music in instructional, promotional, and documentary films comes from.  Feature films with too small a budget for original music also rely on library music.  Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra albums are consumer products; anyone wishing to use the music as a soundtrack must negotiate licensing fees.  Thus, "fake" library music.
2. Real soundtrack music.  Commissioned for a specific, actual film, as Goblin's track was.
   

The third category is real library music, such as Eddie Warner's Cops, Crooks and Spies album for library label l'Illustration Musicale, with tracks like "Detective Theme," "Prohibited Sector," "Manipulated Code," and the Goblinesque "Infernal Crime"--

A6 Infernal Crime

Eddie Warner

Finally, there is fake soundtrack music, or music composed as the soundtrack to an imaginary film.  J.G. "Foetus" Thirlwell has put out three such albums under the moniker Steroid Maximus.  Thirlwell's psychotic rantings can become tiring to listen to, but his Foetus backing tracks were always interesting.  It turns out he really is a gifted composer and arranger, and the mostly vocal-less Steroid Maximus albums showcase that facet of his talents.  I haven't put up any car chase music for quite a while, so here is Thirlwell's excellent "Chaiste"  (get it?  chased?) from the 2002 album Ectopia--

11 Chaiste

Steroid Maximus

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